Students marching through Porter College, 1980

May N. Diaz, anthropology professor and provost of Kresge College

Herman Blake at 1979 Commencement, Oakes College

Eugene Cota-Robles, professor of biology, academic vice-chancellor and director of affirmative action

Highlights from a decade of change:

• Student-led protest and advocacy—rallies, marches, and sit-ins—became annual events from the late 1960s onward. Among their targets: the Vietnam conflict, civil rights and social justice, campus diversity, increased fees, proposals to change the college structure and grading system. Activists made use of the Upper Quarry Amphitheater, Central Service offices, college plazas and dining halls, campus roads and pathways, and even downtown streets and highways as their stages.

• The uneven growth of a multi-cultural student body prompted the dedication of existing spaces in both colleges and core to serving these students’ needs and interests. Located in Kresge College, an emerging academic program in Women’s Studies (later Feminist Studies) would achieve international recognition.

• During the 1970s an increasing number of women and minority professors were hired, and several influential women and minority scholars took up administrative posts. The campus, whose pioneer faculty and administration had been overwhelmingly white and male, began to work toward an environment that could attract and support a more diverse citizenry, better connecting the City on a Hill with a wider world.